What is it?

Debian Edu/Skolelinux is an operating system intended for educational use and a Debian Pure Blend . As skole [skuːlə] is the Norwegian word for school, Skolelinux's literal translation is "school linux". It has been created as an overall free software computer solution designed to fit to schools' resources and needs, and is currently being developed by a large and growing international community.Skolelinux provides a terminal server environment suitable to most educational scenarios, and comes with most services pre-configured out-of-the-box. It allows both a technical and non-technical installation process depending on the user's needs and expertise and highly simplifies middle-to-large system deployments and configurations.

A bit of history

Skolelinux's seed was planted during a warm summer day in 2001 when a group of four computer talented people started discussing the computer situation at schools and how much they disliked the market domination by proprietary software. They dreamed of a better scenario where Norwegian students could enjoy software natively translated and where they could have access to the source code to be able to learn from it. They were also conscious of schools' problems with high costs and the restrictions that proprietary software impose.

With great enthusiasm, they started working on a solution and officially founded the Skolelinux project on July 2, 2001. Twenty-five computer programmers and translators combined efforts to improve and promote educational software. Naturally, some pioneers were more interested in developing software and some others in providing as many native translations as possible.At about the same time, Raphael Herzog started the Debian Edu project in France to create an education-related meta-packages collection, and the two projects joined forces in 2003.

Soon Debian Edu/Skolelinux's importance grew and it became associated with the "Free Software in Schools" organization (earlier called "Linux in schools") which was founded on July 16, 2001. During 2002, German teachers, developers and translators joined Skolelinux. In 2003, Skolelinux incrementally became included as a standard part of Debian, and since then, many developers from around the world have collaborated on the project. During 2002 Skolelinux was tested in a pilot phase at eleven Norwegian schools, and also introduced in Hamburg schools.

Debian Edu or Skolelinux?

At some point during the spring and summer of 2001 both Debian Edu and Skolelinux projects began as independent attempts to create a GNU/Linux distribution for educational purposes. Raphael Herzog started Debian Edu project as a member of a group called IIRC with the objective of creating education-related meta-packages and Skolelinux started from a Norwegian group as a project intended to create a CD distribution. After some initial collaboration, the French group left package maintenance to the Norwegian group which started to include them on their CD. By that time people all over the world were contributing, and at that point both projects effectively became one. Some say that Debian Edu is the name of the project, and Skolelinux is the name of the distribution, but in practice both names now actually refer to the same project.

Teaching documentation: it is important not only to provide a great platform but to provide documentation on how to better use it for teaching.

Why consider it?

Advantages

It is Free software: not only in price but also in the way schools are allowed to use it. This is ethically important to an educational environment as it should avoid being an arena where piracy is accepted or encouraged but a place that promotes the making and sharing of knowledge. This project provides user-friendly licenses that gives rights not responsibilities.

Provides control: users can decide themselves when to upgrade hardware or software, and so they are able to remain independent from suppliers' influence.

Economical savings: Teleplan, an independent agency, released a report concluding that it can help save up to 60% in costs thanks to its eased maintenance when compared to a traditional workstation infrastructure. Note that saving money does not mean zero cost.

Rock solid: it is a stable and reliable system that just works. Additionally, it is less vulnerable to viruses, worms and malicious acts.

Solves real needs: it is made by schools and for schools and so, it becomes inherently designed to fit real scenarios.

Highly supported: as it is part of Debian, it benefits from a large and vibrant community that means lots of momentum and development and guarantees that it will stand strong and around us for a very long time.

Ecological: it helps to lower ecological footprints. It has proved to be more power-efficient than a traditional independent workstation infrastructure, and terminal servers also enable reusing of old hardware to act as thin clients.